Baby Fever

Two of my wonderful sisters have had children in the last few days, bringing my total number of nieces and nephews to 14. My sister in law is pregnant as well. Lisa and I also just got back from a wonderful trip to Denver, where we had fun playing with three of my now 4 nephews. It is therefore understandable, perhaps, that I have felt paternal stirrings in the last few days.

I know very well that I'm not ready to be a daddy in many ways. While we are financially afloat, we are not even knee-deep in money, and we can only suspect that the crunch will get more pronounced as I head in to law school. Part of that is the fact that Lisa is going to be the main breadwinner for our little family, something rather difficult should she also be trying to care for a newborn.

I do not really feel mature enough to be a father. I am still trying to get a complete grip on myself; while I do think that Lisa would be a wonderful mommy, I also know that the stress of a new baby, added on to the stress of her job and of school, would be incredibly difficult.

I've also been assured that it's nice to have this time to ourselves, to control our sleep schedules, to be able to do all sorts of things. I believe it, I really do, and I'm very happy.

But somehow, when I look at pictures of daddies holding their little newborn children, my arms start to ache to hold my own little babies.

Family History...?

Lisa and I have been having fun going through the new family search website. One of the best parts is finding people like Agnes Keith, who we found in Lisa's line. It turns out that Agnes had three children, all of whom died over a hundred years before poor Agnes was born!

She had 28 sisters named Elizabeth Boyd, all of whom were born and died in the same year, except for 5 of them, who born two hundred years before the others. One of them lived to be 180 years old! She almost saw her sisters!

The World of Man

I'm reading a very odd Indonesian book called Bumi Manusia. The plot is extremely confusing and I often sit up halfway through and yell something like "The whole thing would be better if the ninja had killed Minke!", which would make more sense if there really was a ninja in the story. Anyway, the story is pretty sad, and it made me realize- I don't like reading sad stories. I like happy stories.

Jimmer Fredette... the next (?)

So, everyone knows (or, at least, they should know) that Jimmer Fredette is a fantastic basketball shooter. One of my favorite quotes is from the Urban Dictionary, which has as on of its definitions for "Jimmer" as "One who is in range as soon as he steps off the bus".

I'm going to jump into the 'next' game and say... I think Jimmer Fredette is like Steve Kerr. He's not especially fast, nor is he especially good on defense, but he can shoot like nothing else.

I have heard a number of interesting comments and sides as to how well Jimmer will do in the NBA. A lot of people think that he's going to end up as a non-entity, someone who will ride the bench for whatever career he has.

I was curious, so I looked up the base annual salary of an NBA rookie. It's $490,180 for the 2011-2012 season. And that's not including any endorsements, or the $100 a day expenses during the season, or anything else. Honestly, with Jimmer's popularity, it seems likely that he'll be able to make a good amount through endorsements (honestly, I'd probably buy Jimmer-Jammer Juice or Jimmer Shoes). Should he be picked in the first round of the draft, he will assuredly make over $1.25 million a year for his first two years; he will also certainly get some kind of fat signing bonus.

So, all in all, it sounds like he'll be doing fine.

I Was Blind, but now I see...

My sister-in-law Marie is learning sign language, and she had to spend a day 'deaf'. She remarked on her blog that she thought it would be much worse to be deaf than be blind. I discussed this with Lisa, and she was of the same opinion.

Personally, I think I'd choose deafness. Having gone through days in which I couldn't wear my contacts and didn't have glasses, I fear blindness.

Of course, being deaf would be hard. Social interaction is much more difficult; anyone can speak to a blind man, but if you don't know sign language, conversation with someone who's deaf is a trickier matter. Also, the thought of giving up so much- From Mendelssohn and Mozart to the Beatles and Beach Boys to Muse and Coldplay- is a very sad thought for me.

However, while deafness is more isolating, I feel like blindness is more incapacitating. It would be so terrible for me to not be able to help in the kitchen, to not be able to drive to work, or read emails without a specific program; to have to learn a whole new language to read books; to be unable to find my way around a church building; to never know what my children's faces looked like. Honestly, it would also be hard for me to give up watching movies and playing computer games. It would be really hard for me to not be able to find things (even more than I can't find them now).

I feel very blessed that I haven't had to make that choice.

The State of Israel

So, after taking a class on the History of the Jews, I feel like I am able to have a civilized, intelligent discussion on the State of Israel. Anyone burning to discuss it with me?

Application Aggrivation

So, Lisa and I have narrowed the schools we want to apply to to Stanford, Chicago, and BYU. I have done all of the applications and am now....

Waiting for my letters of recommendation. It's kind of annoying, especially because the last thing I want to do is be rude to the professors who are very nicely writing them for me, but I really need them in soon. I don't know what to do.

Sigh.